Let's Do Breakfast: The Rise of the Morning Meeting

While on a trip to the people2people Brisbane office last week, I was amazed to see how many business breakfast meetings were taking place. I must admit, I was up extraordinarily early because of the time difference created by the fact that Queensland do not have daylight saving. As my grandfather would say, I was up at 'sparrows f*%t'. The sunny mornings are a perfect time to conduct business meetings, and at the coffee shop on the corner of Adelaide and Creek Streets, local Brisbanites were already doing business at 7:30 am.

Morning meetings are becoming increasingly popular, even without the perfect weather conditions available in Brisbane. Professionals with busy schedules and managers with an eye to costs can discover that the breakfast meeting is a much more effective tool than the business lunch. I did have an interesting thought about the etiquette of breakfast meetings.

Everyone knows that breakfast is now very much considered an essential element of a healthy diet. However, what do you order when you are sitting opposite a new, very important contact? Do you hoover up an Eggs Benedict? Go head long into a full English breakfast? Dabble in the Scottish delight of black pudd? Do you show your healthy side and go for a fruit bowl? I don't know the answer. If I were to give any advice, it would be take a leaf from the sales 101 manual and mirror your breakfast companion. If not, then you have a great reason for eating whatever you like. If you haven't tried it before, take a punt on breakfast. You may be surprised at the positive benefits. Drop lunch and do breakfast!